Please stop with this narrative that the uncontrolled gender pay gap is meaningless. It is not. From the 2024 Gender Pay Gap Report:
“The uncontrolled gender pay gap is not less meaningful than the controlled gender pay gap. It reveals the overall economic power disparity between men and women in society and how wealth and power are gendered. Even if the controlled gender pay gap disappeared — meaning women and men with the same job title and qualifications were paid equally — the uncontrolled gap would demonstrate that higher-paying positions are still disproportionately accessible to men compared to women.”
The uncontrolled gender pay gap is hence an extremely succinct number at summarizing all forms of economic disparity. Yes, controlling for factors such as education and job titles - but the controlled pay gap is meaningless in a post equal pay for equal work environment. Everyone already knows that education and job titles determine most of your salary - hence these are called “bad controls” in the literature. The problem is now that women do not receive the same levels of access to education and higher level job titles, a phenomenon which is captured very well by the uncontrolled gap.